INSTINCT AND SENSUOUS COGNITION. 49 



creatures are based and on which his final des- 

 tinies depend. Indeed, if Prof. Loeb would take the 

 trouble to study the definition which St. Thomas 

 gives of the vis aesti mativa in animals, he would find 

 more wisdom in that one definition than his previous 

 unacquaintance with that author had ever permitted 

 him to suspect. This unacquaintance with the 

 Scholastic method of thinking is the very handicap 

 which makes him "conceal the problem' ' beneath the 

 veil of a few Greek phrases. 



Loeb as well as Bethe, Uexkuell and others men- 

 tion a great many facts 1 ) of a nature similar to the 

 one explained. But it is unnecessary to enter upon 

 tljem. For far from demonstrating that the move- 

 ments of animals are merely due to mechanical causes, 

 they show rather the evident fact that some kind ol 

 sensitive cognition guides the animal in the perfor- 

 mance of its instinctive activity. 



But we may ask, does sensitive cognition suffice to 

 explain the phenomena of instinct? The exterior sen- 

 ses as such certainly do not. For the mere preception 

 of something green will not induce the cow to eat; for 

 in that case the cow would eat any kind of green mat- 

 ter, poisonous herbs or only colored paper. But 

 this does not agree with facts. On the contrary, just 

 as hens when threatened by a bird of prey are at once 

 aware of their danger, but never call their young when 



l ) Cf. E. Wastnann, S. J., Instinkt und Intelligenz im 

 Tierreich, Third edition, (Herder 1905), p. 136-168. 



This edition of Wasmann's work is practically a new book. 



Morever, Wasmann, Die psychischen Faehigkeiten der 

 Ameisen; Zoologica, Heft 26 (1899). 



